Science Magazine Podcast
Transcript, 11 October 2013
http://podcasts.aaas.org/science_news/SciencePodcast_131011_ScienceNOW.mp3
Promo
The following is an excerpt from the Science Podcast. To hear the whole show, visit
www.sciencemag.org and click on “Science Podcast.”
Music
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
Finally today, David Grimm, editor for our daily news site, ScienceNOW, is here to talk
about some recent stories. I’m Sarah Crespi. So, Dave, first up we have a story on what
happens when historians and geneticists team up. This is a story where genetics meets
history. Let’s start with the artifacts in play. We have a handkerchief, supposedly
bloodied, by the decapitation of the last French king and a mummified severed head from
a British king. What do these things have to do with each other?
Interviewee – David Grimm
Well, the French King was Louis XVI. As you said, he was the last French king. He was
beheaded in 1793 during the French Revolution. Actually when he was beheaded,
according to legend, a witness soaked up his blood with a handkerchief and stored it in a
decorated gourd.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
That’s a really nice detail.
Interviewee – David Grimm
That’s the handkerchief. The mummified head of King Henry IV is important because
this king is a direct ancestor of Louis XVI, so they are related.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
These samples were actually tested for DNA evidence. What did they find when they did
that?
Interviewee – David Grimm
Well, it’s contradictory. When the bloodied handkerchief was first tested a few years
ago, the geneticist who tested it said yes, this is indeed the blood of Louis XVI. And he
based that on a couple of things. First of all, the DNA that he looked at from this blood
on a handkerchief came from a blue-eyed European male, and that matches with Louis
XVI because he also supposedly had blue eyes. Now that’s not very strong evidence. So
he dug a little further and he looked to the mummified head of Henry IV and he looked at
the Y chromosome of DNA extracted from this. And he found what he said was a pretty
good match between this Y chromosome and the Y chromosome of the blood taken from
the handkerchief. And he put all this together and he said there’s a pretty good chance
that this handkerchief actually contains the blood of Louis XVI.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
Not everyone was convinced by this evidence. What were some of their objections?
Interviewee – David Grimm
Well, there was so little of the Y chromosome taken from the head that the matchup
between the head and the blood on the handkerchief could have just been due to chance.
So what happened in this new study was a French historian teamed up with a geneticist
from Belgium and they looked at the relatives of French kings. These would be people
that were somehow descended from Louis XVI’s line, and they belong to something
called the House of Bourbon. And they looked at the Y chromosomes of a few of these
individuals and he created what they called the Bourbon Y chromosome profile. And
what they found was that this profile didn’t match up with the blood on the handkerchief
or the head of Henry IV. So they put all this together and they say that not only is the
blood on the handkerchief probably not that of King Louis XVI, but even the mummified
head may not actually belong to King Henry IV.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
What about the original team? Did they take this new evidence and say, oh, you guys are
right.
Interviewee – David Grimm
No, of course not. They are saying that looking at family trees related to royalty is
fraught with problems, and they say that actually that the Y chromosome profile that
these researchers constructed actually traces back to Philippe I, who was apparently
known to be gay and therefore should not have had direct descendents. So there’s a lot of
history, a lot of genetics going on here. Nobody’s really agreeing. What’s interesting is
that a company has actually created a test where you can test to see whether you’re
related to French royalty. But this is all based on the original findings of the genetic
analysis of Louis XVI’s supposed blood and King Henry IV’s supposed head.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
Next up we have a story on cyborg cockroaches. If you’ve ever lived in an insectinfested dwelling, the idea of using your iPhone to control them might seem like a dream
come true. How can I make this happen, Dave?
Interviewee – David Grimm
Well, Sarah, you can purchase RoboRoach #12 for $99 from a company called Backyard
Brains. And they will send you a live roach in the mail with a tiny little backpack, and all
you’ve got to do is you’ve got to sand a patch of its shell on its head so that you can
superglue some electrodes and insert a ground wire into the roach’s thorax. Then you’ll
have to trim the antennae a little bit and insert silver electrodes into them. You’ll have to
fit the roach with a little backpack, and when you’ve done all of this you can whip out
your iPhone or other smartphone device and control the roach moving left or right and
possibly right out of your building.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
Yeah, I was going to say that’s just one. Will it lead the others away? So why did they
come up with this idea, what is it for?
Interviewee – David Grimm
Well, the company wanted to design a do-it-yourself neuroscience experiment. And
these RoboRoaches aren’t really designed for the general public – although I’m sure you
could order them – they’re really designed for students, students as young as 10 years
old. And the idea is to teach them ostensibly about how the brain works, how
neuroscience works, and potentially even the interface between electronics and living
organisms, also known as cyborgs.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
So there actually are some objections to this, ethical questions that are raised by
robocockroaches. Can you talk about that?
Interviewee – David Grimm
Well, some say that this is an animal welfare issue because you’re basically taking a
living organism, you’re chopping off some of its body parts, you’re gluing things into
various parts of it, and then you’re controlling it. So some people say that this is really a
big ethical no-no. Some people have even written letters to the company saying that they
are turning kids into psychopaths.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
So what do the inventors say, or the purveyors of this say, in response to these kind of
comments?
Interviewee – David Grimm
Well, they say we’re not turning kids into psychopaths, we’re teaching them about
neuroscience and this is very educational. If you don’t like the product you don’t have to
buy it. So a very interesting debate going on over RoboRoach #12.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
And I see from the comments on the article that it’s continuing on the website.
Interviewee – David Grimm
It is, yes, so definitely check out the comments. And you can actually see a picture of
RoboRoach, too, on the website.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi,
Finally, we have another story on our chitinous friends. This is actually a fortuitous
finding story. One lucky man found a tick in his nose and happened to be in the lab at the
same time. How did this come about?
Interviewee – David Grimm
Well, he had what he says is a distressingly familiar itch in his nose – this isn’t the first
time he had a tick in his nose – and he did what any good scientist would do. He pulled
out the tweezers, stuck them into his nostril and yanked out a tick. And he’s pretty sure
where this tick came from. He had been in Uganda studying chimpanzees. And these
chimpanzees are known to carry nostril ticks, and they jump from primate to primate.
And as a primate himself, he wasn’t super shocked that it had gotten into his nose. And,
indeed, this wasn’t the first time it had happened, but at least this time he was back in the
US, back in his lab, and is able to analyze this little disgusting creature. And you can see
a picture of this creature on the website.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
So what did he find when he sequenced its DNA?
Interviewee – David Grimm
Well, what he found is that its sequence didn’t match anything else known. He knew that
the tick belonged to the genus Amblyomma, but beyond that it didn’t match any particular
species, which could indicate that he’d found a completely new species of nostril tick.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
But it could just be that we have a dearth of nostril tick DNA to look at.
Interviewee – David Grimm
That is also possible and he says a lot more genetic analysis is going to be required,
perhaps some more researchers coming back to the US with ticks in their noses.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
Okay. So what’s the weighty scientific import of this finding? Is it that they are likely to
transmit disease?
Interviewee – David Grimm
Well, first of all, these ticks can transmit disease between primates, so that’s always
something important to study. The other thing is it’s an interesting evolutionary story
because if you’re a tick you don’t want to be picked off by your host, and chimps are
fastidious groomers. So you’ve got to hide somewhere that they’re not likely to find.
Now there are a few orifices we could talk about, but for the purposes of this discussion
let’s just say that the nose and particularly the nostril is the orifice they chose. Even
though they are fastidious groomers and they do indeed pick their noses, it doesn’t seem
to be enough to dislodge these ticks, so these ticks have evolved to find a very safe,
comfortable, and warm place on the body to hide out.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
So what else is on the site this week, Dave?
Interviewee – David Grimm
Well, Sarah, we’ve been covering the Nobel Prizes this week, and you can see all of our
coverage and analysis of these prizes on the site. We’ve also got an interesting story
about the origin of the Jewish people. It turns out it may not be what most Jews, and
indeed most historians, believe it to be in terms of where Jews actually came from in the
world. For ScienceInsider, we’ve got a lot of coverage on the government shutdown
that’s happening in the US and the impact it’s having on science, everything from Arctic
research to cell biology to even space sciences being heavily impacted. And we’ve got
analysis about all that. Finally, for ScienceLive, our weekly chat on the hottest topics in
science, this week’s ScienceLive is about the Wild West of open-access publishing. It
follows up on our sting operation, which we published last week about what exactly is
going on with open-access publishing. Next week’s chat is about water resources. How
is the world coping with a dwindling water supply? So be sure to check out all of these
stories on the site.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
Great. Thanks, Dave.
Interviewee – David Grimm
Thanks, Sarah.
Interviewer – Sarah Crespi
David Grimm is the editor for our online daily news site, ScienceNOW. I’m Sarah Crespi.
You can check out the latest news, our upcoming live chats, and this policy blog,
ScienceInsider, at news.sciencemag.org.